As Light Through a Prism
by readerofasaph
Summary: Basically a KnB ficlet collection, sporadically updated. Various pairings, mostly Miragen-centric. Pairings so far: AkaKuro, KiMomo, AkaMido, NijiAka, MomoKuro, AoKuro
1. Equivalent Exchange (AkaKuro)

**Equivalent Exchange **

**_(in which Akashi and Kuroko move in together.)_**

Tetsuya's nineteen when he discovers that Akashi is irredeemably awful at housework.

With the perfection of hindsight it shouldn't have been too surprising a revelation. Cosmic justice dictates that Akashi Seijuurou has to be bad at _something_. It's just Tetsuya's bad luck that Akashi's weak point happens to be one that's maximally inconvenient to himself and his housemates.

Tetsuya (somehow) manages to stifle laughter when the attempt to microwave eggs goes horribly wrong and takes three hours to clean up after. His composure somehow survives the demise of the rice cooker and the breaking of seventeen pieces of crockery.

By the time Akashi sets the ironing board aflame and the fire brigade turns up, however, it's all getting to be a bit much. Resisting the urge to smile is physically hurting.

Akashi gives him one of the usual calm (although ever so slightly baleful) looks once the firefighters have left. "I can tell when you're trying not to laugh, you know."

"Should I stop trying, then?"

"Yes."

Akashi is always best taken at his word. "I'm going to go to my room and laugh myself silly, if you don't mind," says Tetsuya.

"Please do," says Akashi, who is staring at the soot-blackened tiles of the laundry room with the rapt attention he normally grants to a _shougi-ban_.

The floor is no cleaner than before when Tetsuya emerges fifteen minutes later. Akashi has beaten a hasty retreat to the dining room and is of all things, perusing horse racing results on his laptop.

"Akashi-kun," Tetsuya begins.

"I've asked a cleaner to come." answers Akashi without looking up. "This is entirely my responsibility and I'll take care of it."

Listening to Akashi is easy and feels natural. Tetsuya had to lose basketball and find it again, had to win a Winter Cup and shed more tears than he'll ever admit to – and even after all that he still wants to believe in that voice, those eyes, that mind that always seems to know exactly what to think and do.

Sometimes though, Akashi is just _wrong_.

"We agreed there wouldn't be cleaners," says Tetsuya. They both know Tetsuya can't afford them.

"I'll pay for this one."

"We also agreed there wouldn't be exceptions to the rules."

"That was before..." Akashi trails off. Akashi _never_ stops mid-sentence.

"Before you realised how privileged your childhood upbringing was?"

For a moment Akashi looks annoyed, which is almost a revelation in itself. It's always difficult to imagine Akashi acting on emotions, even when Tetsuya's seen it happen before.

"I deserved that," Akashi admits.

"I'll clean up the laundry room."

"It's not your responsibility."

"But it's what I want to do." He sits at the table and Akashi does finally look up, glancing at Tetsuya with his beautiful mismatched eyes. "This isn't Teikou, Akashi-kun. You don't get to decide for both of us."

There's a pause before Akashi nods. "I'll cancel the cleaners. But only if you show me how to use the iron at some point."

"That's probably impossible," Tetsuya says lightly, recalling last night's disastrous attempt to demonstrate to Akashi the finer points of making yakisoba.

Akashi raises a brow. "I taught you basketball, didn't I?"

It's such an familiar statement, one that's passed Akashi's lips half a dozen times, that all the sting has gone out of it. Only the memories remain, the weight of everything that has passed between them, and for Tetsuya at least the sweet has outlasted the bitter.

"I deserved that," Tetsuya concedes.

"You did," answers Akashi, and leans in.


	2. Something in the Water (KiseMomoi)

**Written for the basketballpoetsociety songfic challenge on tumblr. Based on Brooke Fraser's _Something in the Water_.**

_I wear a demeanor made of bright pretty things _  
_What she wears, what she wears, what she wears_

In the daytime she wore her hair loose. It hung like a veil around her shoulders, heavy and improbably sleek, although she brushed it casually and conditioned only sometimes. To the sensitive nose she gave off the clean soapy smell of convenience-store shampoo; he, noticing it, began leaving small bottles of L'Occitane and Clarins in her knapsack, for her to discover when she arrived home, and for him to smile against the nape of her neck, the next time he bent low to place a kiss there, breathing in the scent of ylang-ylang and geranium as he did so.

_Give me nights of solitude, red wine just a glass or two, _  
_reclined in a hammock on a balmy evening_

In the evenings she put her hair up. Sometimes she wore a chignon, her earrings dangling and real silver to counterpoint the restraint of the hairstyle. Sometimes she framed her face with pinned curls, butterfly clips, a single flower tucked at the side of her head, chosen from the bouquets he gave her.

Together they learned about Chianti and Malbec, Riesling and Sangiovese; she kept databases on her smartphone whereas he simply remembered, eidetic as ever. After their twentieth date she stopped photoblogging what they ate. Too busy with schoolwork, she explained when he asked. It was only months later, scribbling in her diaries, that she realised for herself the real reason: the need to meticulously record their relationship had faded with its progression. At the beginning it had seemed like some dizzying luminous journey that was destined to halt some day, as one woke from a dream.

Now she expected his messages to come before she fell asleep, and they did; she phoned, and was not surprised when he answered every time, anytime. He had become a constant in her life, and she in his. And so she learned to take their happiness for granted, and he was delighted that she did so.

_I've got haloes made of summer, rhythms made of spring _  
_What she wears, what she wears, what she wears_

Once a season they cleared out his wardrobe - one morning spent sorting and folding and playing dress-up (he made her wear his ties, his shirts, his earrings), one afternoon spent wandering around Tokyo's more fashionable secondhand clothing stores (she bought herself clothes as he sold his).

Everything he wore was sponsored, and perfectly fitted. Clothes seemed to become more attractive simply by virtue of being worn on his tall graceful frame. Ever since the junior high days he'd had that eerie, glorious quality of looking as if he belonged in a photograph. When he stood in the sun, his smile bright, the angles of his face impossibly beautiful by daylight, she was reminded that it had never occurred to her to fall in love with him. He existed for posters and fan clubs and and girlish daydreams.

Not for this, for the rest of her life. Except that perhaps he did.

_I got crowns of words a woven, each one a song to sing _  
_Oh I sing, oh I sing, oh I sing_

It was a long time before they were ready to talk about Kuroko. Perhaps it was too early even, when he asked, but by then they could not have borne waiting any longer.

"Why did you love him?"

"Because he was so ordinary," she said.

A moment later, she amended: "Because he was unattainable."

(Finally, honestly: "Because I loved him." He hugged her close and did not question her circular logic.)

Likely they would never be ready to talk about Aomine.

_Give me long days in the sun, preludes to the nights to come _  
_previews of the mornings laying in all lazy_

"San Pellegrino," he said, after a sip. She recorded the result in her laptop and poured him a glass of Evian next.

"You're really high-maintenance, Ki-chan," she said when they were done. She was somewhat terrified by his exhaustive knowledge of imported bottled waters ("Naturally sparkling, sourced from a spring in Vergeze, France." "Collected from the Ölfus Spring in Iceland. They served this to all the models at last year's Nozomi Ishiguro fall collection.")

"Someone in this relationship has to be," he answered. "I wish you were more selfish, Momochi."

"I am selfish," she replied. For years she'd been collating information about him with no significance attached to the activity. He'd belonged to Teikou, and was of the Generation of Miracles; that had been all. Now she greeted every new fact and discovery with a palpable excitement, a possessiveness.

Every new secret was a part of him that belonged to her only, that she did not have to share with Kuroko, with Aomine, with the rest of the world.

_give me something fun to do, like a life of loving you _  
_Kiss me quick now baby I'm still crazy over you._

"How long do you think we'll last?" she asked, one bright and summer day.

He thought about it. He'd been playing basketball, his cheeks flushed and animated from the exercise, from the joy of it. "Forever?"

"You might be right," she agreed, tiptoeing up to kiss him, her head full of him and no one else.


	3. Valediction (AkaMido)

Their love is a study in opposite kinds of perfectionism.

Shintarou wakes at six as always, almost before the morning alarm ringtones on his cellphone begin to sound. Dawn for Seijuurou arrives as it often does, in a gradual hypnopompic awareness of Ravel's _Sonatine_, of dim light edging in between the slats of half-drawn blinds; of Shintarou's movements, quiet and considerate and familiar. Clothes being folded, suitcases unzipped, drawers sliding open and shut with minimum noise.

It is not a day like any other, but the usual routine plays on: half an hour passes, and Seijuurou feels awake enough to snatch his tablet from the bedside table and sleepily logon to Shogi Club 64, challenging the highest-ranked player he can find to a match.

The first victory of the morning accomplished, he pads into the kitchen and finds Shintarou grilling fish. It is usually Shintarou who makes breakfast — he does not need to, the apartment is stocked with bread, and eight kinds of cereal, and so much fruit that Seijuurou periodically has to invite Eikichi or Taiga over to consume it in bulk before it overripens. But Shintarou is cooking today because it is the last day, and Shintarou tends to bouts of sentimentality, and is also prone to feeling unnecessary responsibility even in situations like theirs, where neither blame nor gratitude are relevant.

There are things in the world that Seijuurou cannot predict — Kuroko Tetsuya's basketball, Oha Asa's lucky items on any given horoscope — but Shintarou's decisions have never been among those things.

He moves to the counter, listens to the sizzle of oil and clink of ceramic crockery as Shintarou turns off the gas rings, plates up the food.

"When does your flight leave?" Seijuurou asks, even though he knows the boarding and departure times to the minute.

He feels Shintarou's gaze go sharp and a little worried — it is uncharacteristic of Seijuurou to ask unnecessary questions.

"Noon." He leans down to bring his mouth to Seijuurou's. The kiss is familiar rather than exhilarating, intimate rather than breathless.

Seijuurou pulls away first, his mind preoccupied with finding the kindest way to do this for both of them. Clean breaks. No unnecessary attachments. _Stop thinking of me as your captain. Stop thinking of me as your partner. _

He could ask it of him, and Shintarou would never forget, never let the two of them go, regardless of impracticality and physical geography. Shintarou's will is a flame kept banked through continual labour, in need of daily tending — but no less blazing and perpetual for all its vulnerabilities.

Not that he tends to use figures of speech to define his own understanding of Shintarou. The language of poetry is not native to Seijuurou's mind. In this and so many other ways, Shintarou has been their pioneer, their teacher. Light and shadow. Loss and despair, surrender and freedom.

"You'll move on before you realise it," Seijuurou says, because he knows it is true.

"I loved you before I knew I did."

"I knew."

"You love me." The prosody of the syllables uncertain, as if Shintarou isn't sure whether to make his words a statement or a question.

"That, I didn't know till much later."

"You're the one who said, 'I want to be your enemy'".

Seijuurou considers replying: _We were young_. But in some ways he hasn't grown beyond the boy he was then. Given the choice between a lover and a worthy opponent, he'd take the worthy opponent ninety-nine times out of a hundred.

Shintarou understands this. There is an immutable constancy in how they know each other and keep knowing each other.

Seijuurou has mapped it all out in his imagination: the possibilities, the futures where they remain together.

They're not living any of those futures today.


	4. Boyhood (AkaMido)

**Summary: ** _Midorima recalls Akashi. _

The social circles of their respective families overlapped sufficiently that Midorima met Akashi at least twice a month in settings related to neither school nor basketball. At first it was awkward being on the receiving end of Akashi's cultivated smile, his practised courtesy. Later they became a refuge of sorts for each other. Akashi's capacity for etiquette was considerable and well-trained but finite; he could only tolerate idle chatter for short bursts of time, after which he would slip away to some alcove or balcony or garden path.

Midorima invariably followed, and they would remain in that hiding place for the rest of the evening – playing portable chess, debating bj-league matches, refining the details of whatever new plan Akashi had concocted for terrorising the basketball club, until the chatter died down and the clink of crystalware faded, until awareness of parents and the lateness of the hour broke into their shared seclusion.

In future years when asked to describe his former captain Midorima would define him in terms of genius and discipline and a mind that cut like a two-edged sword through everything; in terms of unimaginable strength (certainly Midorima would never have been able to imagine Akashi had he not met him first); in terms of Teikou, for Teikou and Akashi had seemed like two sides of the same coin in those childhood days, even though there had been a Teikou before Akashi and a Teikou after Akashi, and neither of those resembled Akashi's Teikou.

Mostly however for himself Midorima remembered Akashi in terms of a rare smile, a concealed gaze, in memories of sake, embroidered kimonos, moths' wings in lamplight, and Akashi's eyes in the darkness: bright but elusive, concealing a soul that Midorima had never been able to decipher.

Defeating Akashi at a game, any game, Midorima had once believed, would reveal the boy for what he was: absolute or human, correct or false.

It was not till much later that he wondered if it had been another kind of knowledge he sought.


	5. With tremulous cadence slow (AkaMido)

Summary: Akashi and Midorima, years later.

**With tremulous cadence slow**

Chapter Text

After the end and when some years had passed since, you finally found the requisite combination of self-knowledge and courage to confess to him.

"I thought that might be the case," he said. His eyes held neither surprise nor happiness; you had not expected any better, but still your heartbeat, already rapid, grew more painful.

Then he added: "Perhaps this was inevitable." And he reached for you.

Thereafter it was physical and confusing: his breath on your neck, your fingers sliding past his navel. Neither of you possessed the sureness of experience. Later you would ponder on that, at the fact that he had waited, but at that point there was too much novelty, desire, disbelieving joy and long-deferred catharsis.

"Where to from here?" you asked a little later.

He cast you a smile so sweet you were tempted to doubt its sincerity. "Where do you want to go from here?"

It is not up to me, you answered silently, thinking of all the things you could not control: fate, the universe, the human soul, himself. Aloud you said, "I want to find a horoscope to predict you."

"No, you don't." He pressed his hand to your ribs at the place where your heart beat loudest. "Anyway you can already predict me."

"Not in any of the ways that matter." He allowed you to touch his face. You did so while wondering how love could feel so much like fear.

Your tools have always been concrete things: auguries, checklists, goals, the elliptical. All these seemed ineffectual in shaping the inchoate and tidal forces that existed between you and him.

He said, "Earlier, I lied."

You steeled yourself, anticipating pain. "About what?"

He drew your hand to the inside of his wrist, so that you could feel how quickly his pulse thrummed. "I didn't think anything was inevitable at all."


	6. Snow white, rose red (NijiAka)

A chance encounter some years later. [NijiAka] Written for nana-aniki, who wanted to see Akashi interacting with Nijimura's child.

**Snow White, Rose Red**

Unsurprisingly, Mayumi fell in love with Akashi at first sight.

Before Shuzo had a chance to introduce her, she was already reaching out for the pants leg of Akashi's designer suit and tugging at it.

"Oniisan, what's your name?" she asked, her eyes gleaming with a bright expectancy.

Akashi smiled at her in that contained and slightly mysterious way of his that seemed to work on every female between the ages of eight months and eighty years.

"Call me Sei-nii," Akashi said, crouching down to pat her on the head, his fingers brushing against the butterfly clips in her hair.

"Sei-nii," she repeated with satisfaction, and began pulling at Akashi's tie.

Allowing Mayumi to continue her exploration of his overpriced clothing, Akashi looked up.

His gaze passed over Shuzo's face; Shuzo had the uneasy sense of his entire young adulthood being detected and interpreted in an instant: high school education, decent but unfulfilling job, failed marriage, zero time for basketball.

"Good morning, Nijimura-san." Akashi bowed his head.

"Hey, Akashi," said Shuzo. "Long time no see. Mayumi-chan, you should greet people properly when you meet them."

"I don't really mind," Akashi said, picking Mayumi up and standing once more. Shuzo was surprised to see Akashi holding a toddler with such ease, but then again, it wasn't exactly as if he'd ever seen Akashi being bad at anything.

"How are you these days, Akashi?"

Akashi inclined his head. "Well as always. I'm glad to see that you are all right." He glanced at Shuzo's hand, where his wedding band had used to sit. It was a more pointed gesture than Akashi usually made.

It made Shuzo cranky all of a sudden. Akashi had always been a law unto his own, sure, but in the past it'd never bothered Shuzo the way it seemed to bother other people. Why should it have bothered him? Some people were more lucky, some people were less lucky — and yeah, some people seemed to live completely charmed lives.

Shuzo didn't consider his own life particularly different from the average - it'd had a lot of bad things and a lot of good things, and overall he wasn't especially happy or unhappy with it.

Right now though, it kind of felt like Akashi Seijuurou had a habit of showing up in his life just in time to witness his most spectacular failures.

"We should get going," he said, taking Mayumi out of Akashi's arms and into his own. "See you around, Akashi."

Akashi looked a little surprised, but nodded.

"It was a pleasure seeing you again, Nijimura-san."

_

The weekend was busy, and between Mayumi's mother visiting and a long list of errands to run, Shuzo didn't really think about that chance encounter until he got to the office on Monday and found the half-dozen long sprays of white roses spread out across his desk.

Things became increasingly complicated from thereon.


	7. Fruit-sweet, ice-cold (MomoiKuroko)

**Fruit-sweet, ice-cold (**_Momoi/Kuroko__**)**_

Once a week they bought cheap popsicles and ate them together. He liked cold and sweet things and she liked nostalgia; she catalogued the brands and flavours as they cycled through – vanilla, lychee, berry, orange, calpis. She owned notebook after notebook filled with every datum she knew about him: the perfect boy, kind and strong and courageous. Every fact she discovered concerning him only made him shine brighter in her mind: the first and purest love.

Thing is though he wasn't the right boy, and by the time she realised this it turned out he'd known it all along.


	8. (five things he never needed to say)

Chapter Text

**(five things he never needed to say). [AoKuro]**

I'll never quite understand you, nor will you ever understand me. This was obvious from the first day we met.

You never lie when it comes to the things that truly matter.

Of course I've wished before that our positions were reversed: my light to your shadow. Who would not? Yet in the end I wouldn't trade my path for yours, nor yours for mine.

No one can say what the future holds. But if we both keep playing, then you won't have left me, and I will not have left you.

I will always love basketball.  
(Just like you.)


End file.
